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CICO is mostly nonsense, because you can't control neither CI no CO. CI is based what people eat, but how much and how often people eat (if you don't expect pe

by glogla 7y ago

CICO is mostly nonsense, because you can't control neither CI no CO. CI is based what people eat, but how much and how often people eat (if you don't expect perfect and infinite willpower) is based on how hungry they are, and that is hormonally controlled, based on complex feedback loop that includes insulin levels (so what you eat and how often) and activity levels. CO includes many things you have no conscious control over, like heating (ever stopped being cold after a meal?), muscle repair and buildup, brain, etc. Only small fraction of that is exercise. People saying "it's just CICO" are as disgusting as millionaires saying "just stop being poor, it's easy, you have to make more than you use" while knowing nothing (and not caring) about student loans, healthcare costs for non-insured people, housing crisis or anti-labor practices that suppress wages.

partialrecall 7y ago
Wow, that's extremely judgemental. When I was on the swim team in highschool, I was fit as a fiddle. When I went to university I chose to stop swimming but also chose to continue eating the same (because I like food.) Predictably, I started to get fat. I'm certainly capable of eating less, and I am also capable of increasing my activity. Your rant denies that I have any agency in this matter, which is somewhat offensive. And even if it were the case that I had no agency, it would still be the case that my weight loss was due to a CICO imbalance. CICO is a matter of physics, not ethics or morality.
dpark 7y ago
> CICO is mostly nonsense, because you can't control neither CI no CO. This is a wholesale abdication of responsibility and an embrace of victimhood. Yes, there are elements of calories out that aren’t fully in your control. However these place a lower bound on calories out. You can absolutely increase your exercise and activity level. On the other side, you are very much in control of your calories in. You can choose to eat a better diet (e.g. whole foods) that makes it easier to maintain a caloric deficit. You can choose to stop eating before full satiety. You can even go so far as to fast, cutting your calories in to 0. Obviously hunger matters but this idea that you can’t control your eating at all because you’re hungry is ridiculous. You are very much in control of these factors. Yes, there are broad issues contributing to obesity but individuals are not relieved of their responsibility just because society also has problems.
- DanBC 7y ago
  > You can absolutely increase your exercise and activity level. Exercise is important for health. Exercise does not help people control weight, and it may make people heavier. The fact that people insist they're scientific while ignoring the evidence is particularly frustrating.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - dpark 7y ago
    Exercise can absolutely contribute to weight loss. It does not guarantee weight loss because an individual can always eat more than they burn (and indeed many do). That doesn’t mean it’s not a very useful tool for weight loss in a continued caloric deficit. Maintain your caloric intake level “at maintenance” and add 5 miles of running per day and you’ll lose weight.
    - DanBC 7y ago
      > Exercise can absolutely contribute to weight loss That's not what the evidence says.
      - scarface74 7y ago
        The evidence doesn’t say it’s not possible. If we were all homo logicus exercised consistently and kept our caloric intake in equilibrium to our BMR and added exercise on top of it, it can be done. But it doesn’t work in practice for most people.
      - dpark 7y ago
        You’re clearly speaking in generalities because the evidence is absolutely there that people can lose weight by exercising. But if you’re speaking in generalities then people basically don’t lose weight at all. The studies indicate that nearly no one keeps weight off long term. If you restrict your sample to the select few that do keep off the weight, some do it with diet alone. Some do it with diet and exercise. Some very few do it with exercise alone. Any of these strategies can work. But in general, none of them do.
scarface74 7y ago
Yes you can both control what you eat and how much you burn. In my heyday when between teaching fitness classes and training for runs, I was burning conservatively 5000 to 7000 calories a week, eating like a horse, and not gaining weight for over a decade. After I stopped working out but didn’t cut back what I was eating enough, I gained 40 pounds over the next three years - and that’s a lot when you’re short. The last two years, I’ve adjusted my calories in (brought them down) and my calories out - about 3000-4000 a week and I’m back down to about 5 pounds above my fitness heyday weight. But, I would never tell anyone else the best way to lose weight is via exercise. Studies show that hardly ever works because people overestimate how much they burn exercising and underestimate how much they eat. Also in my experience, people statistically never get to the point where they exercise long enough, hard enough or consistently enough to lose weight. I would always tell people to focus on their diet and tell them to talk to a dietitian if they wanted to lose weight.

by glogla 7y ago

partialrecall 7y ago

Wow, that's extremely judgemental. When I was on the swim team in highschool, I was fit as a fiddle. When I went to university I chose to stop swimming but also chose to continue eating the same (because I like food.) Predictably, I started to get fat. I'm certainly capable of eating less, and I am also capable of increasing my activity. Your rant denies that I have any agency in this matter, which is somewhat offensive. And even if it were the case that I had no agency, it would still be the case that my weight loss was due to a CICO imbalance. CICO is a matter of physics, not ethics or morality.

dpark 7y ago

> CICO is mostly nonsense, because you can't control neither CI no CO. This is a wholesale abdication of responsibility and an embrace of victimhood. Yes, there are elements of calories out that aren’t fully in your control. However these place a lower bound on calories out. You can absolutely increase your exercise and activity level. On the other side, you are very much in control of your calories in. You can choose to eat a better diet (e.g. whole foods) that makes it easier to maintain a caloric deficit. You can choose to stop eating before full satiety. You can even go so far as to fast, cutting your calories in to 0. Obviously hunger matters but this idea that you can’t control your eating at all because you’re hungry is ridiculous. You are very much in control of these factors. Yes, there are broad issues contributing to obesity but individuals are not relieved of their responsibility just because society also has problems.

DanBC 7y ago
> You can absolutely increase your exercise and activity level. Exercise is important for health. Exercise does not help people control weight, and it may make people heavier. The fact that people insist they're scientific while ignoring the evidence is particularly frustrating.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- dpark 7y ago
  Exercise can absolutely contribute to weight loss. It does not guarantee weight loss because an individual can always eat more than they burn (and indeed many do). That doesn’t mean it’s not a very useful tool for weight loss in a continued caloric deficit. Maintain your caloric intake level “at maintenance” and add 5 miles of running per day and you’ll lose weight.
  - DanBC 7y ago
    > Exercise can absolutely contribute to weight loss That's not what the evidence says.
    - scarface74 7y ago
      The evidence doesn’t say it’s not possible. If we were all homo logicus exercised consistently and kept our caloric intake in equilibrium to our BMR and added exercise on top of it, it can be done. But it doesn’t work in practice for most people.
    - dpark 7y ago
      You’re clearly speaking in generalities because the evidence is absolutely there that people can lose weight by exercising. But if you’re speaking in generalities then people basically don’t lose weight at all. The studies indicate that nearly no one keeps weight off long term. If you restrict your sample to the select few that do keep off the weight, some do it with diet alone. Some do it with diet and exercise. Some very few do it with exercise alone. Any of these strategies can work. But in general, none of them do.

scarface74 7y ago

Yes you can both control what you eat and how much you burn. In my heyday when between teaching fitness classes and training for runs, I was burning conservatively 5000 to 7000 calories a week, eating like a horse, and not gaining weight for over a decade. After I stopped working out but didn’t cut back what I was eating enough, I gained 40 pounds over the next three years - and that’s a lot when you’re short. The last two years, I’ve adjusted my calories in (brought them down) and my calories out - about 3000-4000 a week and I’m back down to about 5 pounds above my fitness heyday weight. But, I would never tell anyone else the best way to lose weight is via exercise. Studies show that hardly ever works because people overestimate how much they burn exercising and underestimate how much they eat. Also in my experience, people statistically never get to the point where they exercise long enough, hard enough or consistently enough to lose weight. I would always tell people to focus on their diet and tell them to talk to a dietitian if they wanted to lose weight.